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THE FILE‐DRAWER PROBLEM REVISITED: A GENERAL WEIGHTED METHOD FOR CALCULATING FAIL‐SAFE NUMBERS IN META‐ANALYSIS
Author(s) -
Rosenberg Michael S.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.0014-3820.2005.tb01004.x
Subject(s) - meta analysis , biology , publication bias , computer science , statistics , econometrics , medline , mathematics , medicine , biochemistry
Quantitative literature reviews such as meta‐analysis are becoming common in evolutionary biology but may be strongly affected by publication biases. Using fail‐safe numbers is a quick way to estimate whether publication bias is likely to be a problem for a specific study. However, previously suggested fail‐safe calculations are unweighted and are not based on the framework in which most meta‐analyses are performed. A general, weighted fail‐safe calculation, grounded in the meta‐analysis framework, applicable to both fixed‐ and random‐effects models, is proposed. Recent meta‐analyses published in Evolution are used for illustration.